Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu and Avengers: Doomsday are not the only premieres of Pedro Pascal for 2026. The star will also be on the big screen with a more intimate and emotional film where he takes on the central role, Alex Serian, a cellist who returns to Los Angeles and delves into the world of composing music for film.
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Directed and written by Tony Gilroy – the brain behind the series Andor, perhaps the best production linked to Star Wars in recent years – Behemoth! will premiere in theaters in the United States in December and everything points to it being part of the programming of some of the main festivals in the second half of the year. Meanwhile, in Chile its title will be ¡Behemoth! A Life. In Pieces and it will arrive in theaters on a date to be confirmed.
The feature film faced the actor of Chilean roots with the greatest challenge of his career: learning to play the cello and looking believable in the role of a musician who has superb command of that instrument.
“It’s the hardest thing I’ve had to learn to do. Being in a gladiator arena or hanging from a harness… That pales in comparison to learning to play the cello and making it look convincing while portraying Tchaikovsky,” he admitted to Vanity Fair, the outlet where Gilroy and Pascal gave their first statements about the film.
The filmmaker admitted that at first he had some prejudices about the protagonist of The Last of Us. “I thought he would be superficial or frivolous,” he said, also recalling that the project was about to collapse after Oscar Isaac – one of Pascal’s great friends in real life – had to step aside last August.
Finally, after their first conversations, he found that the Narcos actor was “really very smart about how to be a movie star and, above all, is absolutely willing and eager to have a completely honest and unrestricted conversation.”
The story of Behemoth! follows Alex’s experiences as he takes his first steps in Hollywood. His past and the circumstances that led him to return to Los Angeles – after decades performing symphonic works across the country – are explained through flashbacks that appear as he performs a different composition.
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Under that structure, the film develops relationships with his father and brother (played by Hank Azaria and Will Arnett, respectively), and with two female figures: Nadia (Eva Victor), a cellist with whom Alex has a romance during his time in Dallas, and Carol (Olivia Wilde), an ex-girlfriend who has unresolved issues with him.
“There was something in this story that I connected with intellectually and emotionally. (Alex) is not a rock star. He’s not even seeking fame. He’s simply someone whose native language is music… It’s a love letter to music; it’s a love letter to cinema. It’s about family; it’s about legacy; it’s about healing. I wanted to have this kind of experience as an actor even before I started acting. And now it comes much later in my life and career… There was an instant connection,” he detailed to the American outlet.
From Gilroy’s perspective, there are other nuances in the fiction backed by the Searchlight Pictures studio. “It’s Behemoth, but with an exclamation mark. It has a magical touch. There’s fantasy, there’s farce,” he pointed out.
The feature film will have a particularity: it includes the participation of composers Michael Abels, Emily Bear, Lukas Frank, Michael Giacchino, James Newton Howard, Henry Jackman, Nami Melumad, Brandon Roberts, and Alan Silvestri. In total, nine musicians who represent a world that, according to the director, is “in crisis.” “I can’t believe no one has made a movie about this before,” he expressed.
He was also categorical in praising his lead actor. “Pedro Pascal is being the lead for the first time in his entire career. It’s his adventure. It’s his moment. It’s time for the audience to see how right they were to bet on him as a movie star,” he said.
Although there is still a long way for the competition to take shape, some specialized media already predict that Pascal will be nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars. If he advances on that path, it would be the first nomination of his career and another key milestone in a career that seems to have no ceiling.
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Check out below the trailer for Behemoth! and more images:
